The actor sat down with us to discuss his upcoming movie "People Like Us," but naturally the discussion drifted toward "Trek" and what kind of arc Captain James T. Kirk would take in the next installment.

Pine complimented the script by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof at length, but specifics about the film were carefully glossed over.

"What you also get in that circumstance is it's a constantly evolving beast — the script, the material, how it's going to look, how J.J.'s going to shoot it," he said. "There is nothing set in stone, which is tremendously frightening, but also extremely exhilarating, especially when it's like a finely tuned racecar. They just know how to do it. In this constantly evolution, the script that they had written kept getting better and better."

The actor also touched on the mystery surrounding the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's villain, and cautiously dissected the relationship between their two characters.

"It is structured so that the antagonist brings out all of the qualities in Kirk that need to happen in order for Kirk to grow," Pine said. "As you know from Benedict, just watching him, vocally, he's fascinating. He's got this deep resonate voice. He's a fascinating face. He's a lovely guy and just super smart. You want to see something firing in his brain, so he's not just a blood-dripping-from-the-fangs bad guy. Benedict brings those kinds of smarts."